Tuesday, 6 June 2017

The Battle

A recent Whiskeytown post over at Charity Chic Music got me reminiscing about the time I saw the band in 1998, at The Borderline just off the Charing Cross Road in London's glitzy West End. The subterranean Borderline was something of a regular haunt for me during that period, I could almost do the 210 mile round trip with my eyes closed and often drove home alone through the night with the windows wound down, to avoid doing just that. I had a mate along for the ride for the Whiskeytown gig though, who happened to be the guy who had originally introduced me to the band. Whiskeytown were joined onstage for a couple of numbers that night by James Iha, then of the Smashing Pumpkins. Iha had recently issued his first solo LP, the alt-country tinged 'Let it Come Down' and Whiskeytown covered 'Be Strong Now' from it in his honour. Iha would go on to contribute to Whiskeytown's third and final album 'Pneumonia' the following year. The show finished with Ryan Adams performing a seemingly impromptu solo interpretation of Johnny Cash's 'I Still Miss Someone'.

But one particular performance from the evening had me and my pal still gobsmacked an hour later as we sped back home along the A12 - the song in question was 'The Battle', a starkly beautiful Ryan Adams and Caitlin Cary duet. Let's just say that we summoned the names of Gram and Emmylou by way of comparison - yes, it was that good. A recorded version of 'The Battle' wouldn't appear until 2002, and then only as part of a limited bonus disc issued with Caitlin's debut solo album 'While You Weren't Looking'. Fortunately her old mucker Ryan was on hand to recreate the magic.